A feature of aging is that both sex-linked hormones, testosterone and estrogen, decline with age, and these declines have well-documented effects. First, there is a decline in interest in sexual activity. When Socrates asks sixty-eight-year-old Cephalus about his libido, Cephalus responds, “Most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master.” A sixty-eight-year-old friend of mine, H., whom I’ve known for forty years, was one of the most sexually active people I’ve ever known until a few years ago, when his libido just up and
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